Soyuz Lands Off Course After Error Or a Glitch

By STEVEN LEE MYERS

Published: May 5, 2003

MOSCOW, May 4—
The Russian Soyuz capsule that ferried three astronauts from the International Space Station back to Earth today landed about 260 miles short of its intended target in the steppes of Kazakhstan, officials said, after a technical malfunction or piloting error during its fiery descent.

The capsule's faulty re-entry prompted a confused two-and-a-half-hour search for it and heightened anxiety over what is, for now, the only way to carry astronauts to and from the space station because of the grounding of the American space shuttles after the Columbia disaster on Feb. 1.

The capsule and its crew -- two Americans, Capt. Kenneth D. Bowersox and Dr. Donald R. Pettit, and a Russian, Nikolai M. Budarin -- landed in a remote area north of the Aral Sea, not far from Russia's border, instead of at the planned landing site southwest of the Kazakhstan capital, Astana.

Initial medical examinations concluded that the three crew members were healthy, officials said. Dr. Pettit did not appear with the other two astronauts when they arrived by helicopter in Astana more than eight hours after landing. A NASA spokesman, Allard Beutel, said that Dr. Pettit, on his first space voyage, was suffering from the effects of gravity after more than five months in space.

The three men, who had been aboard the space station since Nov. 25, returned to Moscow this evening and were taken to the space training center, Star City, where they will undergo two weeks of medical tests and debriefings with officials from NASA and the Russian space program.

''The most important thing in our work is a happy ending, so the crew can walk around the capsule after landing and pick tulips,'' the director of Russia's space agency, Yuri N. Koptev, told reporters at the mission control center at Korolyov, north of Moscow, after the three astronauts were found.

The Soyuz capsule, a variant of the ones used almost since the program's inception by the Soviet Union, and then Russia, hurtles through Earth's atmosphere in what amounts to a free fall before parachutes slow its descent and rockets ease its trajectory. The capsule that landed today was a new version, making its first landing with modified rockets and control systems that had been intended to ease its descent and improve the accuracy of its landing.

''What we carried out was a test flight,'' Captain Bowersox said in brief remarks to reporters after arriving in Astana, Reuters reported.

The re-entry from space today was the first since the shuttle Columbia exploded, and NASA's first landing on foreign soil.

Captain Bowersox and Dr. Pettit became the first NASA astronauts to land aboard a Russian capsule, though 33 other foreigners have in the past, as did Dennis Tito, an American businessman who paid to fly into space two years ago.

Officials said today that it could be weeks before an investigation determined exactly what sent the capsule into what they described as a ''ballistic re-entry,'' a faster, steeper and more strenuous landing than even the usually rough ones for Soyuz capsules.

Mr. Koptev said the faulty re-entry could have been caused by human error or a mechanical fault involving any one of the capsule's systems. But he played down the significance of the hard landing, saying the capsule was designed for just such an occurrence, even as he acknowledged that it had happened only twice before.

''There is no need to dramatize the situation,'' he said.

The hitch in the landing nevertheless created a quiet drama in the control center, situated inside a shabby, boxy building at the sprawling Russian space complex that had once been the glory of the Soviet Union and is now dilapidated and invaded by stray dogs.

NASA's administrator, Sean O'Keefe, along with the wives of Captain Bowersox and Dr. Pettit, joined Russian officials at the center before dawn to monitor the descent and appeared elated when the announcement of the landing was flashed across the center's main screen shortly after 6 this morning.

As minutes ticked by, however, the rescue planes and helicopters dispatched to retrieve the crew reported that they could not find the capsule, having lost contact with its radio beacon. It had fallen so far short of its target that some of the helicopters ran low on fuel and had to return for more before continuing the search.

Mr. O'Keefe, Mr. Koptev and the others left the center shortly after the report of the landing and did not return. The center's technicians, who had left their computer screens after the landing was announced, returned as the search dragged on for more than two more hours. It was not until 8:21 that rescuers reported finding the crew alive and well.

Nikolai M. Ivanov, the control center's chief ballistics expert, said the ballistic re-entry would have intensified the G-forces on the crew, though not beyond tolerable levels, and could have disrupted the communications system, hampering the search afterward.

Photo: American astronauts Capt. Kenneth D. Bowersox, left, and Dr. Donald R. Pettit, center, with Nikolai M. Budarin of Russia on a flight to Moscow yesterday. A helicopter took the Soyuz team to Astana, Kazakhstan. (Pool photo by Mikhail Grachyev) Map of Kazakhstan highlighting site of landing: The Soyuz capsule landed yesterday about 260 miles off target.